Fludd: A Novel

Has left me, he almost said. He bit the word back in time. Miss Dempsey nodded. Fludd is in his room, of course, praying. Philomena is in her convent, of course, sweeping out the kitchen passage under the direction of Sister Anthony. Everyone is where they should be; or we may collude in pretending so. And God’s in his Heaven? Very bloody likely, Father Angwin thought.

He sat with his book, turning it over in his hands; the stained, battered yellow-brown cover. Faith and Morals for the Catholic Fireside: A Question-box for the Layman. Published Dublin, 1945. Nihil Obstat: Patrilius Dargan. Here was the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Dublin himself, with a little cross printed by his name.

She got it all out of this, he thought, all our conversations: what a treasury of scruple, what a cache of conservative principle. Here it is, the old faith in its entirety; the dear old faith, with no room for doubt or dissent. The rules of fasting and abstinence; no mention of record hops. Diatribes against impure thoughts; no mention of relevance. And just here on the tattered spine the general editor’s name, none other than The Revd. (as he was then) Aidan Raphael Croucher, Doctor of Divinity: the bishop in person.

I shall store it under my pillow, Father Angwin resolved; it will keep me in gibes for years to come. How I shall persecute the fellow with his past opinions; bringing up one question or another, intruding them into casual conversation, until his terror of me is complete. May dripping be used for pastry, or is it allowed only for-frying fish? He has got up to his bishopric on the back of such questions. None of us can know what we will come to; but some of us cannot even remember how we began.

Question: Why is fortune-telling permitted at Catholic bazaars? Answer: The practice is not to be encouraged, many healthier amusements could be substituted. Question: Is it right for the Catholic Church to pass a collection-box during Sunday evening Lent services? It is always right, sometimes it is advisable and frequently it is necessary.

I knew she was reading it off a paper, Father said to himself. I suspected she had all the answers. There was a name written in pencil on the fly-leaf, in a round schoolgirl’s hand. Dymphna O’Halloran. This is all she brought from Ireland, he thought; and I supposed it was one of the convent’s books. This is all she brought from Ireland and now she has left it to me. He thumbed his way back to the preface. Divine Revelation, coupled with two thousand years’ experience has made the Church an incomparable teacher in matters of human conduct. There is not a walk of life, a personal activity, a private or public occasion, on which our Holy Mother is not able to teach, encourage, warn or advise us, from the deep knowledge she has of the human heart and mind, and their strange modes of action.

Two thousand years’ experience, Father Angwin said to himself. It is an awesome thought. He reached blindly for his whisky glass. His fingers closed on it, he brought it to his mouth. He tasted it and held it off, he held it up to the light with his eyes screwed up and looked at it. It had the appearance, the colour, the outer properties, yet it was not whisky; it was water. Oh, Fludd, he thought, you sorcerer’s apprentice, you’ve gone and got it wrong this time. You’ve worked a miracle in reverse. You’ve doused the celestial fire, you’ve taken the divine and made it merely human, you’ve exchanged the spirit for damp, warm flesh.

But meanwhile, Perpetua scrambled across country. I shall get her at the station, she thought. She did not stop to think what a figure she cut, galloping and puffing, her habit bunched up in her fists to clear the ground, her lace-ups scuffed and a hole torn in her stocking, her crucifix on its cord bouncing against the place where laywomen have their bosoms. She ran at a peculiar crouch, pausing every so often to stand upright, massage her ribs, and sight her quarry. On the tops of stiles she hovered, to scan the country. The beast was not now in sight; but I shall corner her on the platform, Purpit thought.

She had time to notice, as she ran, the white streamer that looped and snaked on the wind, fastened to a fence pole; and even as she ran, she thought there was something familiar about it, something faintly ecclesiastical, something that made her want to stop and genuflect. She conquered the inclination. I shall trap her on the platform, she thought, and drag her back, I shall drag her down Upstreet in full view, and before night falls I shall have pulled those clothes from her back and locked her in her cell to wait until the bishop comes, and then we shall see, and then we shall see, then we shall see about the degraded minx.

Her heart pounded and roared in her ears, under the folds of her veil. She did not doubt she had the advantage; the station path was but a sprint away. As she turned downhill, the evening seemed to close in over the allotments behind her: that rolling darkness, rolling down from the moors. From the hen-houses, a single point of light gleamed: as it might be, the tip of a lighted cigarette.

She had almost gained the station path, when a figure rose up before her, out of the bushes, and blocked her path. She stopped and stared, eyes popping. It was a figure she knew, a form she knew, yet subject to change, to a transformation that froze her blood. “Oh, horrible,” said Mother Purpit: caught half-way over the final stile.

Roisin O’Halloran stood on the platform, her Gladstone bag held before her in her hands; prepared, as if she did not know how quickly the train might come upon her. She stared down the track. Her tartan headscarf flapped boisterously, and her ungloved hands with their paper ring were blue around the knuckles.

Across the moors that train must come, but what if snow had fallen in Sheffield today? What if Woodhead was blocked, what if a blizzard was brewing? Snowploughs out. Ice on the points. Sheep buried alive on the moors. Men in mufflers and spiked boots, crystals in their moustaches, going about with spades to dig people out. She pictured herself huddled in the waiting room, on the bench into which the Netherhoughtonians had cut their runes; she imagined the voice of the station-master, “No trains out tonight.”

She had no watch. She did not know when the train ought to come. She had bought her ticket with her head bowed, in a false voice. She was like a parcel, she thought, addressed but not posted. She had felt the ticket-man’s eyes on her back. She did not dare ask him, what time will the train come? She had hoped for a public notice of some kind. But no doubt if there had been one, the people from Netherhoughton would have come by night and torn it down.

In her shyness, her confusion, her haste, she had not asked Father Fludd, what time will the train come and carry me away? She had only heard him say, I will be after you. When you reach the other end, mait in the baggage hall. Confide in no one. It occurred to her that this man, this false priest, the impostor with whom she would soon embark on the dreadful Act, was a mystery she hardly dared address, a man whom she did not know. I do not know God, she thought. But I always Trusted in Him.

Roisin O’Halloran put down her bag, and rubbed her hands together to restore the circulation. A question drifted up to her mind: Some years ago I intended going to a certain town by train. I happened to meet a man who had a ticket for that place, but who changed his mind and decided not to travel. He gave me his ticket and I travelled with it. Was there any injustice to the railway company?

What was the answer? She stood frowning, trying to recall it; bending her furious thoughts to anything but the matter in hand. There is no injustice. The railway companies do not insist on personal identification. They are satisfied if every traveller has the ticket required for the journey.

The platform, by some merciful dispensation, had been deserted when she arrived, but now she saw, out of the corner of her eye, that a man had arrived. He stood behind her, a little distance away. She hunched her shoulders